23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick has grabbed all the headlines for all the right reasons so far in the 2026 NASCAR Cup Series season, winning each of the first three and five of the first nine races to kick things off.
And even when he hasn't won, he has still "won" in that he's managed to finish high enough to grow his huge points lead. He hasn't finished outside of the top 15 all year, and as a result, he boasts a 129-point lead over Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin in second place in the standings.
Hamlin has averaged 36.5 points per race, meaning that it's quite literally more likely than not that Reddick would actually still be the points leader if he doesn't compete again until the inaugural Naval Base Coronado race on Sunday, June 21, more than a month from now.
Yet one driver is quietly having an even more dominant season than Reddick is, and no, we don't mean Shane van Gisbergen, following his epic comeback drive on Sunday at Watkins Glen International.
Justin Allgaier dominating NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts standings
Justin Allgaier is putting up Tyler Reddick-like numbers in the NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts Series this season. He may only have three wins to his name, but one of his two runner-up finishes came behind Cup regular Kyle Larson at Texas Motor Speedway, and he has five other top five finishes to his credit.
His points lead over Haas Factory Team's Sheldon Creed is 155, meaning he too could afford to miss every race from now through the Pocono Raceway event and still lead the standings before the San Diego street race. And there's actually one more O'Reilly Series points race than Cup Series points race during that stretch.
His average finish of 7.3 is more than six spots better than it was in 2024, when he won his first championship. He already has more wins than he did two years ago, and his top five finish tally of nine is just one shy of his mark from that year, even with 20 races remaining on this year's calendar.
Allgaier hasn't led the most laps in the O'Reilly Series, but Reddick hasn't led the most on the Cup side either. Allgaier is second among O'Reilly Series regulars, trailing only reigning champion Jesse Love, and third overall, as Larson actually leads the way thanks to his dominance in his select starts as Allgaier's JR Motorsports teammate.
Reddick is surprisingly only fifth in the Cup Series, and he's actually led fewer than one-third the number of laps Hamlin has led to sit atop the series in that category; his dominance has been more about closing the deal than running away with races.
Given the new postseason format, winning the regular season championship is far more of an advantage than it used to be, although given the massive leads held by both Reddick and Allgaier, we'd argue that the regular season champion should be able to begin the postseason with the opportunity to have even more than a 25-point lead.
But with Allgaier having not finished a non-superspeedway race outside of the top 10 and boasting an average finish of 3.7 in those races, if he simply keeps doing what he's doing in the playoffs, it would be a tall task for anybody to prevent him from winning title number two.
Unlike the Cup Series, which is set to run the exhibition All-Star Race this Sunday afternoon, the O'Reilly Series has a points race scheduled this coming weekend at Dover Motor Speedway. Tune in to the CW Network at 4:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, May 16 for live coverage of the BetRivers 200. Begin a free trial of FuboTV now and don't miss any of the action from the "Monster Mile"!
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